


You Wake Up

by FlockOfPigeons



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Grief, What if Mooney had a connection to the Black Hole, just for fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29848209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlockOfPigeons/pseuds/FlockOfPigeons
Summary: Mooney Doctor has been grieving for more than ten years. Told over the course of the first five days of season 12.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2
Collections: Canada Moist Talkers Fanfiction





	You Wake Up

You wake up. 

When you look in the mirror, the face that stares back is not yours. It’s hollow, grief-stricken. You can’t let them see you like this. You wash your face, run a hand over your bare scalp. You go outside, have a cigarette. She would be livid if She knew, but as you look west and trace Her path in the sky with your finger and don’t see Her hovering over the horizon, you remind yourself that She isn’t. You go inside, trip over a bottle on your floor. Your head hurts. It always hurts, now, and it’s only in those brief almost-animal responses of shock and rebalance that it stands out from the dull background noise of idle sensation. You take a Tylenol, the bottle rattles almost empty. You groan inwardly. That means showing your face in public, walking the boardwalk streets, being recognized. Greeting that mix of derision and sickly sweet sympathy that is better only than the fawning of the handful who still adore you. You give them no reason to, and wish that they would take a hint. You go to the game, a game you are not playing but are required to attend anyhow. You watch someone better than you, braver than you, throw strike after strike after strike. They are loved, but unlike you, they have earned it. You go home. You fall asleep on the couch at three in the morning. 

You wake up. 

Your back is sore. You take two more Tylenol. Everything hurts, now, and you feel old despite the fact that time seems not to have affected you. It has churned ever forward without you, for ten years, or maybe more, frankly you’ve stopped counting. Why grab at sand that only runs through your fingers, cuts them to ribbons like shards of broken glass? You go to the game. You watch. The woman on the mound is ruthless, sharp teeth shining through a savage grin. She is not as ruthless as the fans. While you were in hiding, hoping the game never found you again, they were waiting. They were hungry. They want blood, and all you can make out of those faces obscured by distance are row upon row of bared teeth. You go home. You pace until four in the morning. You do not remember going to bed, but nevertheless,

You wake up. 

The light burns your dry eyes like a flame. A bad comparison, perhaps. You’ve asked Workman, you’ve asked Familia. They’ve told you how badly it hurts. It’s hyperbole to think, something you abhor, but for a moment you think that this must be close. Crossing the threshold of your home feels like a tipping point. You’re now past halfway to your turn on the mound, and your brain’s screams of run nearly reach your feet before brutal realism floods in. You can’t run from this. It’s not bravery, even. It’s simply a fact. You go to the game, and with another victory comes another stone upon your chest. You go home, and this time you fall asleep straight away, forgetting to eat or drink or clean the countertop that you swore that you would. You’re exhausted, but not enough to keep you sleeping past 3:30 in the morning. 

You wake up. 

You stand under a sky speckled by stars, so brilliant against the velvet black backdrop. Before She was taken from you, you didn’t know the sky could be so dark. You didn’t know how easy it was to trace constellations across its surface without Her illumination. You pick out every celestial pattern you know and curse each one individually. How dare they keep their beauty when the world around you has ground yours to dust? The sun comes up. You look in the mirror. You’ve been crying. You go to the game, and wake up on the bench to someone shaking your shoulder. Jenkins. They’re worried. You can’t recall ever seeing them worried before, or perhaps you didn’t care enough to notice. You shrug them off. You’re fine, you tell them, and you believe it even as you note it as delusion. You go home. You bury your face in your hands, but the tears do not come. You pour yourself a glass of wine, and hope the floodgates open. If only for proof, tangible proof that you have lost something. Tangible proof that She is still with you and you are not simply empty. 

You wake up. 

You don’t remember falling asleep, and your head hurts worse than usual. Hungover. You reach for the Tylenol, the bottle makes no sound. Empty. You curse. You go to the game a mess, looking a mess, knowing you’re a mess. Ziwa frowns disapprovingly over Eugenia’s shoulder, who cocks her head, then shakes it. The sensible part of you knows that they’re just worried, but you’ve buried that part of you deep, deep down, because that’s also the part of you that knows that She is never coming back. You take to the field under a sky that twists and writhes, painted with a thousand shades of nothing. Black Hole, void. You throw a pitch, the emptiness above echoing the emptiness in you. Strike, strike, out. You can feel your blood pumping, though adrenaline runs muted. And then you feel the pull, something familiar, something that makes your gaze dart upward, hesitate, arm raised. You shake it off, finish the inning. The pull follows you to the dugout, and you grind your palms against your closed eyes and hiss. How dare It speak like Her? How dare It wrap invisible hands around your deadened heart and try to force it back to life, as if It hadn’t been the one to take everything from you? Four more innings, four more stages of grief. You lie to yourself, you fight, you beg. Leave me alone, leave me alone. And still, It claws its way into your veins, bit by bit, Its voice low and full where Hers was light and sweet. The sixth inning is Acceptance. It calls and It whispers apologies, begs for forgiveness you cannot grant. But She lies somewhere within It. So you bridge the gap. The rush of cold, the sense of balance, sweet negentropy. You are whole - you are not who you were, but you are no longer less than your past. The dark pulls at the puppeteer’s strings, and you pitch and pitch and pitch. Your arms burn, and you welcome it. You taste victory, and for the first time in over a decade, you savour it. “Your hair,” Ziwa gasps, and you pull strands of black out of your face. You go home, and in the stillness of night, you sleep. 

You wake up. 

You throw out your cigarettes, but venture outside anyhow. As day swallows night, you chart Her path once more, say a final farewell to sorrow. 

You wake up.


End file.
